Joseph Belbruno Blog

  Putin’s War Budget Faces Growing Strains as Peace Talks Resume Damage following a Russian air strike in Kharkiv.Photographer: Sergey Bobok/AFP/Getty Images By  Bloomberg News January 31, 2026 at 4:30 PM GMT+11 Save Translate 5:17 Takeaways  by Bloomberg AI President Vladimir Putin faces a narrowing window to reach a peace deal in Ukraine as Russia wrestles with a widening budget gap to fund its war. With Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev set to hold talks with US officials in Miami Saturday, Russian officials are concerned that budget spending this year will again exceed planned levels if additional outlays on the war are needed, according to people familiar with the matter. They’re scrambling to find new sources of income of as much as 1.2 trillion rubles ($16 billion) to balance a key budget indicator. That’s equivalent to an additional 0.5% of gross domestic product beyond the planned deficit for this year of 1.6% of GDP, amid declining revenue from energy sales and the ...

  CHINESE RATS MUST BE EXTERMINATED TO THE LAST RODENT! China Test Fires Long-Range Ballistic Missile in the Pacific July 6, 2026 Updated  8:26 a.m. ET China test-fired a long-range ballistic missile with a dummy warhead in the Pacific Ocean on Monday, the first such launch in almost two years, prompting alarmed countries to criticize the move as destabilizing. Governments in the region were warned of the launch shortly beforehand. The overt display of China’s fast-expanding military capabilities threatens to further fan a  defense buildup  around the Pacific in the midst of anxieties about the strength of the U.S. commitment to the region. The missile was launched from a Chinese nuclear-powered submarine and sent a “mock warhead” into the Pacific Ocean, according to a  report from Xinhua , China’s official news agency. “The missile landed accurately in the designated area,” the report said. The test launch at 12:01 p.m. Beijing time, Xinhua said, was “not direc...

  PM facing Nato rebuke from Trump at summit Starmer to be sidelined after defence funding row Ben Clatworthy - Whitehall Editor, David Chazan - Paris, Katy Balls - Washington Editor Sir Keir Starmer is preparing to face down a rebuke from President Trump over defence spending as he attends a Nato summit as one of his final acts in office this week. The prime minister had intended to travel to the summit in Ankara to sell his defence investment plan (Dip) but instead he will arrive with an unfunded plan and less than two weeks left in office. He will also find himself sidelined as officials and foreign dignitaries begin planning for the anticipated coronation of Andy Burnham as his successor. A defence source said: “The world leaders won’t embarrass [Starmer], but there will be enormous disappointment that Britain has sunk so low as to be an ‘also-ran’ in Nato. It’s now bumping along at No 12 in terms of defence spending and the worst in terms of meeting the commitments laid upon i...

  The Transatlantic Alliance Can’t Survive Without Trust Washington Dismisses NATO’s Value at Its Own Peril Wolfgang Ischinger July 6, 2026 U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Brussels, June 2026 Stoyan Nenov / Reuters WOLFGANG ISCHINGER  is Chairman of the Munich Security Conference. He previously served as State Secretary of the German Foreign Office and German Ambassador to the United States. For over a decade, U.S. President Donald Trump has accused Washington’s European allies of free-riding on American security guarantees. He has been criticizing NATO members that do not pay “their fair share” since launching his first presidential campaign in 2015. He threatened to pull out of the alliance after winning office, and then again when running for president in 2024. Just a few weeks ago, at a NATO meeting, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced a six-month review of the American military presence in Europe and declared th...

  The West Has Let Russia Off the Hook. Time to Tighten the Screws. July 3, 2026 Credit... Golden Cosmos By  French Hill Mr. Hill is a Republican congressman from Arkansas and the chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services. When NATO leaders gather in Ankara, Turkey, on Tuesday, they will offer familiar words of resolve on Ukraine, reiterating that Russia poses a threat to their collective security. The statements will be welcome, but they will not end the war. For more than four years, NATO has sought to manage the conflict in Ukraine rather than win it decisively. At Ankara, the alliance members must set their sights higher than another declaration of allied unity. The NATO summit should commit to breaking the Russian war economy and ending Moscow’s ability to fight abroad. That requires admitting an uncomfortable truth: Western sanctions have constrained Russia, but they have not cut off the fossil fuel revenues that sustain President Vladimir Putin’s war machine...

  The Pacific Ocean is running a fever. Why that’s an ominous sign. This area makes up about 13.5 percent of Earth’s total surface, stretching from the Philippines to Peru — where people are flocking to the beach during the Southern Hemisphere winter — and northward to the coasts of Hawaii and California. Marine heat waves are a strong, sprawling and sustained warming in the ocean, sometimes near the surface and other times extending deep. They are ranked on a scale from 1 (moderate) to 5 (beyond extreme), reflecting both their intensity and duration. The enormous Pacific marine heat wave formed as two separate marine heat waves combined: one in the North Pacific and another associated with a developing super El Niño along the equator. While warmer seas might sound nice to some beachgoers, what happens in the ocean doesn’t stay in the ocean — and this marine heat wave is an ominous sign for weather patterns to come. “Months and months of warmth could mean stark impacts this win...